All Or Nothing, OR: Why Language Might Need More Math

So, full disclosure, I'm not a STEM. I'm a beautiful gorram FLOWER. Which means, I'm not much for the numbers.

Friggin' Lover Of Wondrous Esthetic Realities

I oppose linear progression in all forms -- the unidirectional flow of time, guesstimations of distance/weight/price/etc, making things fit "properly" in the dishwasher -- but not because I chose to fight the ordered human universe. I'm just no good at them.


Do not even get me started on doing math. Impossibru.

But I still think maybe our language, my beautiful fluid complex English, could stand to have some more quantitatively qualitative words. Not following? Yeah, that's to be expected. Let me try again.

Say you're identifying someone as having a quality -- rich, feminist, tall, angry, funny, racist, whatevs -- you pretty much do just that: Say "You're _[that thing I think you are]_!" No modifiers. Now, there's wiggle room on that; some people use modifying words. "Hey, you're pretty funny," or "That seemed a little angry, dude." But mostly, casual language does little more than point at an object and label it a quality.

Tee hee hee, I'm so meta

So when the person receives their label, they can either accept or reject it; and both reactions have their problems. Because no matter what label you just gave them, unless you just told them "You are so exactly you!" they are probably not 100% just that thing you called them. And thus begins the math.

You said they were something -- let's say tall. Except they are not made out of tall. Tall is not an accurate description of their fundamental essence. They are taller than you are/expected them to be/are used to, but this is a subjective quality, not an absolute. Another person might not -- let's face it, with all the disagreeable people we've got out there, probably won't -- agree that they are tall.

He will be behind you in the next long line

So say they agree, or bought into it, or hear it enough that they understand the general consensus -- "I'm tall." And then they run into that disgruntled 7'2'' runner-up from the Tall Man convention, who reacts to their self-description of being tall by screaming "You think you're tall? You think you know ANYTHING ABOUT being tall?? You don't have to duck through doorways! You can stand upright indoors! YOU KNOW NOTHING!" and spitting in their face a bunch. They were not 100% made out of tall, and so in his mind they defaulted to 0% -- i.e., "not tall".

Or conversely, they reject your assessment -- "I am not!" Translation: "I am 0% the thing you just said." This one comes up a lot for the feminist and racist examples included in the list above, and for different reasons (or ARE THEY?).

Fortunately, our fatuous population has come to a popular consensus that "racism = bad". UNfortunately, there's no guarantee that even well-intentioned people will be insightful, proactive, reflective or especially wise; so, it's a bit of a ham-fisted understanding at best, because most people don't want to think about it...and want to talk about it even less. (Myself included.)

So if "racism = bad", then "racist = bad person," right? And they try hard, usually, to keep from actually murdering their enemies or stealing all the cake in the world, and so like to think of themselves as a good person. Mostly. Like, on average. Y'know. So when you accuse them of essentially being a bad person, they reject it, naturally -- but you didn't actually say they were a bad person, did you? You said "racist." You ascribed them as possessing some undisclosed amount of racism, not being made of racism -- a difference that is important but one that I cannot go into further here, because this is already gonna be a looong post. The point is, the presence of some element of racism does not equal 100% racist. So they say "No I'm not, because remember how I _[totally didn't suck that one time about a racial issue]_," and it's totally legit; yet it doesn't undermine how they just totally blew the Racist Horn of Racism right where everyone could hear it.  

They're not an entirely bad person, so they can't be racist; only bad people are racists. So they're not racist. MATH.

Where is the part of a person that says they're bad?
Hint: There isn't one

There's no room in this kind of language for the idea of "some", and that's where casual speech lets us down; you're either all, or nothing at all. If we had more than 0% and 100% to work with, we could deduce more complex sums...and maybe actually SOLVE somethings. Crazy, I know.

This seems to happen a lot when talking about feminism, too -- unfortunately, the public consensus on feminism is "feminist = angry burly lesbian manhater fanatic." So there's an understandable difficulty in getting women and men to identify as feminist, because they don't feel fanatic or furious enough. (I think most people recognize the burliness & lesbianism as optional.)

And now, break it down: Personal Opinion Time. What adds dimension to this particular problem, and part of the reason women's rights weren't met satisfactorily over a generation ago, is that there are vocal minorities, outliers of the cause whose extreme opinions so do not mesh with one another that the main body of this movement's simple premise is now fringed by a corolla of goal-posts, as to when or how equality will be achieved.

The diversity puts the "Show Our Colors" Pride Parade to shame

And so there are feminists that would tell you that, simply as a person who thinks we're still living in a world geared towards men as the aftermath of a world that was made for and by men in the past, that you aren't feminist -- at least, not feminist enough -- because you are not the"flavor" of feminist that they are. ("WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BEING TALL?") Which only aids the average person's knee-jerk mental image of feminist extremism...a nasty one-two combo for hindering the gender equality effort. If to even speak about continued gender inequity is going to be associated with extremism, then we are silenced -- not by some final-boss-battle called The Man -- but by everyday people around us, those who'd need to support change if it's ever to occur. And hoo boy has that been effective.

So now hopefully I've now hammered it home; the 0% vs. 100% of You Are or You Aren't is not serving us well.

BUT WHAT OF IT?

I'm so glad you asked! Allow me to shift more comfortably upon my soap box; there, that's better. And off we go again.

Did you know English is considered one of the most difficult languages to learn? We keep inventing new words; it's like Sisyphus with the boulder to those poor saps with the Rosetta Stone tapes. We also use way more euphemisms than most of the other Westernized nations.

(I had a Japanese teacher who studied English as her major while in Japan. She became an expert before ever arriving in America. Her first day, she walked into a diner and proudly ordered breakfast in perfect conversational English. The waitress said there was a special on bearclaws, and asked if she wanted one. My teacher fled the place in horror, totally traumatized.)

"These people are monsters; I have made a terrible error"

But we haven't seemed to come up with many middling descriptors; we like hyperbole and superlatives. (Was it funny? Call it hysterical or hilarious. You found their argument unimpressive? Let's call it retarded, and force the parents of mentally disabled children find yet another thing that isn't being used as an insult to refer to their children. Then we'll take that one, too.) It's like we're supersizing not just our burgers and our trucks, but our language as well...and, therefore, our thoughts. No wonder we're politically polarized; we can only think in bright colors.

There's no Threat Level: Mauve. Think about it.

I say it's time for better middling words! Bring back some context and a sense of scope to our day-to-day lives. How about a word for something that you found disappointingly dull? Not shockingly dull, or appallingly dull, or a coma-inducingly dull...just more dull than you had reason to expect, and you felt let down. I would use the shit out of that word. Or a word for when, even though all the elements of a good event are there -- the good food, your favorite people, in your preferred venue -- for some reason, it's just not kicking off. Whether someone's mad at someone else and trying not to bring everyone else down but the group is picking up on the strain, or everyone had individually felt they were too tired to go but had sort of made themselves come anyhow for the good of the group, is immaterial. That feeling of everyone feeling slightly put-upon and aware they aren't having fun, and that isn't anybody in particular's fault, would be so much more useful to me than "It sucked." Then we're back to the ol' 0% -- no fun at all.

How about something that indicates 45% fun-potential? I mean, come on! NUANCE.

I'm fairly certain I'm not alone on this -- though tackling racism and feminism in one go might have lost me some readers about halfway through -- what words are you wishing for? What unexpressed concepts would you give voice, if you could? A living language changes through common usage -- "suspicious" used to mean "behaving in a suspect manner", not "suspecting someone of something", did you know? It changed because everyone misused it the same way! I think that's totally linguistically hot. If we want to use our own specialized vocabulary, and if we used it pithily enough and it caught on, it would be real linguistic change! So, tell us your words; let's change the world for the better reasonable.

------------------------------------------------
Shout out to Jenna, whose post on being feminist was the catalyst that finally made me write about this all-or-nothing phenomenon.

A Night-Owl's Views On Sunshine

I woke up today when my b.c. alarm went off at noon, but couldn't quite scrape myself off the mattress for another half an hour -- in which to put on a bikini and go lay on a towel in the yard, which you know is so very different. That's tanning. And since Alaska gets about 12 sunny days during our 2 months of summer, and those seem to mostly happen during business hours, you gotta carpe that diem. So I dragged my night-owl ass out into the sun while it was still around, to do something that I -- as a born and raised island girl -- never thought I'd ever do. SUNBATHE.

Thinking: "What have I become???"

I've been laying out on our lawn so often, the grass is starting to pale in my basking area because I'm intercepting so much of its sunlight. As I lounged out there today, I stared lazily up at the trees and watched the sunlight shine off the leaves in the height of the day's heat. I reflected on the way each leaf glinted, the sun bouncing so brilliantly off each tiny facet in the canopy. It's a harder kind of light, the full force of the sun's light at high noon -- my favorite is the later light when the afternoon ripens, but before it declines into dusk. The light has a syrupy golden quality, and saturates the leaves; a positive sponge of photosynthetic light.

I've already shared my little linguistic invention heliotransfolium; well, as the sun reclines closer to the horizon, every leaf becomes radiant with a heavier golden glow, the maximum of example of the term. But in the heat of the day, when the sun is high, what I saw would have to be called helioepifolium -- sun on leaves, as opposed to through.

Helioepi(c)folium - every tree a jewel with a thousand sparkling facets

Mornings are terribly unpleasant for me, and I find the cold light of the morning sun unwelcoming. I like to join the day after it's been well-broken in by earlier risers. (I'm not even people at work until it's almost noon. But I've got them pretty well fooled with the heels & earrings and whatnot.) The blazing hard light of high noon has its perks, including its tanning power -- but give me that ripe honeyed light of late afternoon every time. Maybe this night owl is becoming crepuscular?

Uh-Oh, Poetry: A Well-Respected Me

To the tune of  "A Well Respected Man" by the Kinks


I’ve found a boy to be good to
I love him very much
If you knew him, you would too
He’s bright and sweet and such
I’ve made a home with him
With each paycheck earned & spent
We filled all the rooms therein
And we pay the bills and rent

And I’m all grown up
And I’m just fine
And I’m responsible
With my money and my time
A child who grew too tall
Made to work
And act appropriately

I have a steady job downtown
Filing papers in the State’s employ
Because it’s fairly well-known
There’s no pay in work you enjoy
So I repay my debts with interest
Earning money with every turning page
Seeing what will last the longest
My self-identity or my wage

And I’m all grown up
And I’m just fine
And I’m responsible
With my money and my time
A child who grew too tall
Made to work
And act appropriately

It’s a little life, I’m first to admit
But it’s well and cheaply made
Fame goes to those who don’t submit
But comfort for those who stayed
With no need to soar, I fledge my nest
Trying to balance the means and ends
I live for the things that I love best
Good stories and food and friends

And I’m all grown up
And I’m just fine
And I’m responsible
With my money and my time
A child who grew too tall
Made to work
And act appropriately

Everyone's A Little OCD Sometimes...

It's not like we count everything 10 tiii-iii-iimes...
Much love for Avenue Q.

So, we've all got our little neuroticisms...I bet every lady in the 'sphere could name at least 3 things that, if observed by an outsider, would leave her looking ready for the loony bin. Little lines in your psychological sand, personal preferences that have gotten just a little too big for their britches. They're totally optional -- you're not compelled, per se, you'd just really rather it was done a certain way, amirite??? Feel free to share your little isms in the Comments -- we're all human, and thirsty for mutual validation.

Soooo I have a bit of a thing for the concept of stuff "coming out even." This is a single preference/mini-neurosis that I get a lot of crazy-lady mileage out of, because it can come up in so many parts of life; currently, in my gummi vitamins. 

I freakin' love gummi vitamins, yo. No, I'm not gonna marry them, nyurrr, but I would definitely be down for a passionate summer affair and occasional brief but intense liaisons for a couple of years afterwards.

So the fact that the recommended dosage/serving size is two but there's three flavors sent me into the ol' pseudo-OCD perplexity; but how will I make the flavors come out even? So I did the only sensible crazy lady thing I could do, and have been taking three gummis -- one of each flavor -- every time.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

And now, as I reach the bottom of the jar -- as yet not poisoned by non-regulation amounts of Vitamin A, C, and D3 -- I have scandalous findings to report: THEY DID NOT PUT IN AN EVEN AMOUNT OF GUMMIS. It's true, friends -- I know, I could scarcely believe it myself. The berry flavor had been seriously underrepresented, understandably so as it is the most medicine-y of the flavors. But the sheer margin of the inequity blew my coming-out-even oriented mind; look at this madness.

And this is where the crazy-looking behavior really kicks in

The fact that I'm blogging this -- even photographing this -- may smack of the need for group coloring sessions in the sun room, no sharp objects and a jacket that buttons up the back, but the fact that I'm calmly and rationally now simply taking the recommended dose means I'm not quite in need of an assisted-living home just yet...and I must admit, if I'd been in charge of a slipshod gummi factory, I think I'd have favored the peach flavor too. Only with acceptance of the flawed nature of reality can one transcend the rigid self-imposed strictures of counting your vitamin flavors; the fact that there's more of "the good kind" only aids that transcendence. We all err; and so, it is best to err on the side of peach.

These Are The Days Of Our Lives

Ohhh, music videos back then were SO not what they are now.

Have fun with that being stuck in your head all day, for it is the theme song of today's post, in which I viciously mock the week. No, not like that -- not this week, per se, but the very idea of the Week itself.

Despite the myriad difference of our day-to-day lives --  whether you're a paper-mover, bean-counter, retail-drone, student, stay-at-home, whatever -- we all get the same seven days. Monday to Sunday, in the same order, forever. Depending on your personal schedule, different days may have different connotations for you; for instance, my roommate who only gets Mondays and Thursdays off has a very different idea of "on the weekend" than I do. But there seem to be what I'm gonna go ahead and call general characterisations of each day; a cast of characters that make up the average workweek.

Monday
This is the big one; what you've been dreading. You grit your teeth, squinch your eyes, and just try to make it through. Those who are impervious to its evil will hoot, "Someone's got a case of the Mondays!" These people should be hogtied to the printer-copier and sacrificed to Garfield, but all they get is a pained grimace because who has the energy to spare? Not me.

Bad things tend to happen, because society as a whole is not at its best. Parking tickets, surprise deadlines, someone else eating your lunch -- it's all about getting home, dragging yourself to your favorite horizontal soft surface, and putting comfort foods in your face. Unless you're my roommate, in which you feel chipper, well-rested and spunky, and attempt to violate the personal space of as many grumpy Garfield roommates as possible. Personal space and horizontal surfaces are of the utmost importance on Mondays.

Tuesday


This is the week's equivalent of Second Day Soreness -- that wincing and mincing you do at the gym on Day 2, when you're all sore from yesterday and are now being asked to do it all over again. Everything is harder to do on Day 2s and Tuesday is no different. My inner child always registers disbelief at my absurd behavior as I rise and return every Tuesday morning; "What, you're doing that again? What're you, stupid?"

Yes. Because everything is stupid on a Tuesday. So I must be too.

 I even coined an initialism to capture the zeitgeist of the phenomenon; DCIOT, or Dear Christ, It's Only Tuesday. Feel free to use it jovially around the office, the karmic balance to the well-known and similarly sacrilegious TGIF.

Wednesday
You're starting to get back into your stride by now, which is just as well, because it's time for the next of the week's empty slogans to get brayed at you -- "Over the Hump!" they cry, whilst anyone with any sense of dignity cringes with involuntary sympathy-embarrassment. This is a hideous phrase that should be given physical form only so that it can be burned. Okay, that's a little strong -- but still, my least favorite of the empty office nothingisms. I picture Wednesday as some homely, bulge-eyed mutt straddling the week, staring blankly as it helplessly struggles to dismount. Hump Day -- a phrase that cries out for a bucket of cold water. Ugh.

Thursday
Now we've reached a strangely anticipatory phase in our week, where the hopefulness of Friday bleeds backwards in time to the desperate Thursday workforce. This is the Friday Eve phenomenon; almost to Almost There. It is not much of a day in and of itself, so much as an awkward barrier to Friday; and it is, as Douglas Adams so famously wrote, rather hard to get the hang of them.

Friday
This is a day devoted to the sunny confidence we all seem to hold that this weekend is going to be, in fact, The Best Weekend Evarz. The merriment generated by this secret knowledge sustains us throughout, despite the overwhelming likelihood that it will turn out to involve little more than laundry, television, and maybe some takeout you will come to regret. This never seems to occur to us on that beautiful, optimistic Friday; we are all of us joyfully awaiting that moment when the walls of our individual professional rat mazes will fall away, and the boundless relative freedoms of the wider rat maze of traffic-clogged streets, social contracts, familial obligations and household chores appear with an overarching high blue sky where puffy white clouds spell out Well At Least You're Not At Work. TGIFs abound.

Saturday

My favorite Saturday-regression cartoon
regresses a bit himself. Meta.

This rarely lives up to the Friday hype. Sunshine, actual plans, and someone wonderful to do them with are all necessary precursors to this expected wonderfulness; unless you have somehow arranged for all three (especially since you can't really control the first one) you will probably have a laundry day. But, you can rebel a little by staying in pajama pants all day, subsisting off bowls of sugary cereal and watching cartoons. Regressing is the new rebelling.

Sunday
This is the day when all the chickens you didn't realize you owned come home to roost; what you shoulda done, what's about to come. The feathers positively fly (as do the fowl meatphors, apparently), each one settling with a thud on your guilty conscience. Strangely enough, this doesn't send you into the productive frenzy that's called for; the feathers usually coalesce into a down comforter that's to be lurked in while you sulkily watch your favorite TV shows and pretend you're still having fun BECAUSE IT'S STILL THE WEEKEND, DAMMIT. This has primed you perfectly for Monday grumpiness, a little Monday Eve spirit that Garfield would be proud of.

Loop-Free Is The Way To Be

In my work for Big Oil, I bestride the technical-administrative line that delineates creatures like geologists and engineers from the army of receptionists, administrative assistants and so on. I'm like an office chimera of compositeness (not a word); not versed in the arcane secrets of the earth, but my position is classified as a technician...not considered part of the administrative staff, and yet that is exactly who I have to report to. I like to think of it as being equally wrong-footed in both sectors. I report to a small permed, tanned, bleached, highlighted AND lowlighted poodle-creature that barks ferociously and leaves me hovering on the brink of a full-on panic attack; I constantly worry that if I panic-faint I may crush her, and be jailed for manslaughter.

Fortunately, there is a small bevy of bosomy admin ladies who interact with her way more than I have to, and occasionally bring me news in my far library wing; tales of great cattiness and double-talk that I can only feebly grimace at. They think it's an awkward smile, as well they might; but it is even less than that, my friends, for in reality it is my helpless  fear-rictus. These are precisely the kind of girls that made grades 1-12 an endless waking nightmare for me, whose laughter is a scourge upon the soul and whose thresholds for interpersonal conflict seem unlimited.

What's great is I'm terrified and therefore somewhat (understandably) emotionally distant towards them, and that's turned me into some sort of benign confessor they all come to in order to secretly bitch about their so-called office friends: Mindy doesn't like Stacie because she's a total power-hungry bitch, and Jennifer is on Mindy's side but is closer in age to Stacie, so Mindy thinks Jennifer is probably talking behind her back to Stacie, even though she still totally hangs out with Jennifer like all the time to go on little unauthorized breaks to the Nordstrom's around the corner...etc, etc, etc. 

Now, at this point I'm totally stroking out on the inside from the sheer level of conflict-avoidance panic my brain is pumping through my body, but still I courageously manage some pathetic little "Well at least it's Hump Day*, ha ha ha" office nothingism. It checks them immediately, and the look of bizarre recognition crosses each of their wodgy little faces respectively as they recover from their gossip-gasm to recall that No, I'm not cool and bitchy, that I am in fact the weird girl that none of them has ever invited to lunch. And then they hustle straight outta my library and back into the fray.

I've never been good at that cool, flippant, callous sort of vindictiveness that seems to be so very part of female popularity. I'm definitely capable of isolated incidents of vindictiveness, you betcha; and I mean them, too, from the bottom of my temporarily belligerent heart. But that sustained cruelty for the sake of honing it to an even finer edge that popular girls seem to live for, I just don't have the heart for it. Even if I could dish it out, I certainly couldn't take it. This gave me a lonely and awkward adolescence, but now as an adult I wear it like a shield; I am awkward, you don't want to chat with me! Don't involve me in your shit! Hear me inaudibly roar!

--------------------------------------------
* HATE THIS PHRASE. So much.

Game Of Seasons

I have strong feels on this one, guys. Alaska is NOT cooperating.

Lord Stark strikes me as the kind of guy that's got little bandy chicken legs under all those robes, what do you guys say?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't know why Blogger's choosing to April-Fools me by posting next week's post now...Roll with it, I guess, and check out the post below; the actual April 1st post.

Conspiracy: Feline Monitoring System

I'm pretty convinced that cats are actually kibble-munching, fuzzy-faced spy drones, gathering data on humans foolish enough to pay to take one (or two, or three) into their homes.

At first I thought they were a kind of good/evil thresher device...it was the only way I could account for how a thing of such ineffable fluffy cuteness could generate such pure evil hatred as has been seen in her litter tray. It takes in resources, keeps all the adorable for itself, then sieves out the wretched remainder to deposit in the box. Makes sense, right? But I have recently been forced to reconsider my hypothesis.

It's the way she watches me through the clear part of the shower curtain, sitting nervously on the toilet seat lid -- she obviously doesn't want to be there, but bigods, it's her mission. She must see it through. She's probably programmed to self-destruct if she should fail.

She looks a little concerned for me, I think



And the way she always seems to materialize in my immediate vicinity whenever I have to do something dignity-compromising, like the pantyhose-hoisting dance. She just precipitates out of the ether to stare unblinking at my lady-gyrations, enormous yellow eyes giving me the absolute focus she cannot seem to muster when I'm doing something like, y'know, calling for her. Those perfectly round yellow lenses must be recording it all, sending transmissions out of that flat little kitty skull to the mothership.

Crazy, you say? But I know it's true. I can feel it; locked in a staring contest with this unblinking feline monitoring system, frozen in a deep knee-bend with elbows akimbo, rib-deep in infinitely expandable hosiery. She's recording the whole damn thing, I'm sure of it.



This is her judgy face; point-blank scrutiny from right inside my Bubble

Weighing The Issues 2: The Revenge Of The Resentful

WARNING: It's not a funny post - do not be taken in by the picture of the clown. As in the picture, it is a trap. This is a ranty lady post.
 I know, it's okay; I'll see you next week.

So, I've been trying to lose weight for a few years...I finally made it to target weight back in December of 2011. I know, breaking news right?

Anyhow, before that I had a bit to say about my goals, my lack of progress, and my methods...since then, I found an online calorie-keep-track-of-er (I don't like the term "calorie-counter", and I never look at the numbers anyhow; it has a colorful little bar that tells you whether you're in the red or not, but "calorie-color-er" is a prohibitively confusing term) called LoseIt, and I charged through the rest of my weight loss like a herd of...well, not turtles perhaps, but not racehorses either. Like a herd of conservatively-paced pack animals, let's say. Maybe Shetland ponies.

I reached my goals, eventually -- surpassed them even, and I was soooo happy.  My friends congratulated me, complimented me. Clothes looked nicer on, I wanted to wear less and bare more as per my Hawaiian social mores, the self-esteem was being fed and the face was too, although to a lesser extent -- the roses, they were a-coming up. American Dream style.

Then, as someone other than me might've expected, Phase 2 of having lost weight happened -- and the compliments and congratulations stopped. What more is there to say, seemed to be the sentiment -- you're thin now, you don't need encouragement like the rest of us. Just be happy, you made it.

It felt strange -- to be given so much love and support while failing, and then dismissed once there was success. I told myself I couldn't expect an eternal yay-me parade, and tried to let it go. 

Can't last forever

But maintaining weight is a struggle, too -- not as huge of a struggle, of course -- but a non-stop, for-the-rest-of-your-days long-haul slogfest that people really do NOT support.

Because now you're lumped in with skinny people, most of whom are -- aarrgh -- naturally skinny. They don't worry about what they eat because it's never been an issue, and they'll treat you like you have an eating disorder if you decline food or talk about calories. And your heavy buds don't want to hear you complain, either -- Oh, cry me a river, Miss Size Four. Striking the balance between foods that won't make you feel like you're on a diet for all eternity and stuff that won't make you backslide is a guessing game now played in the solitude of your own head, without being able to chat about strategies or good-calorie-value "finds" with others -- neither camp wanna hear it. I find that I keep myself a few pounds under target weight just so I can be spontaneously taken out to eat -- nobody, regardless of weight or health habits, wants to hear "No, thank you anyway - I can't afford it calorically." It's a guaranteed rage-and-resentment-fest every time, so I just try to stay under that line in my head/on the scale so I'm not seen as "being difficult". Yeah, I'm such an asshole for making a goal, doing what it takes to accomplish that goal and sticking with it. Forget eternal yay-parade, could I get an "It's okay, I understand" up in here?

There's a place in all weight loss plans that's like "The Wall" long-distance runners talk about -- where you feel like you've slammed to a halt, and can't go on any longer. When you start to get really close to the weight you ought to be, your body clings to every pound because it's convinced you're on the road to starvation and self-destruction. Every quarter-pound must be squeezed mercilessly out of the week, and you feel like you've lost all momentum, are failing right before the finish line, etc. It's a tough hurdle, especially that last pound, but you do get there. But that incredible toughness, where it takes ages to make downward progress? I live there now. Every time I go up, I have to take the tough line for two weeks to see my way home. It makes me seem obstinate, and unreasonably harsh to today's low-effort humans -- but it's important to me, and I tried so hard to get where I am that no, I don't feel like compromising. Coz that's how you backslide -- especially if you like carbs and dairy as much as I do! It's even harder to lose weight when you are too childish to eat your veggies.


My inner child is very opinionated

So when Phase 3 kicked, I wasn't ready. I thought the other shoe had already dropped on me -- no more talking turkey, I now keep up the balancing act alone. There's gotta be some cloud in all the silver lining, and the realist in me had accepted that. But a year had passed, and I started meeting people who'd never known me when I was heavy. The one's who'd say, "Oh, well, it's easy for you," or "You don't know what it's like" when weight management comes up.

I work in an office environment, next to the administrative staff. All ladies. It comes up a lot.

And Phase 3 has gotten a little dark -- in offering words of support or giving input, such a familiar activity from back in the pre-LoseIt days, I now get active rejection. Sometimes even anger. Assuming I was never "that heavy," (We aren't competing, are we?? I thought we were collaborating) or that it must have been somehow been easier for my bodytype or what have you, undermines the shit out of the girl who marched at the head of an imaginary parade a year and a half ago. I've lost some sort of connection or cred to that whole heavy-girl identity, and am now resented for trying to impinge upon that group. Hey, anyone who knows about the Venn Thigh-agram should have lifetime, if honorary, membership.

My inner chunky chick is also pretty sassy

So I guess target weight ≠ dharma moksha. Weight issues still exist even from the other side of the looking-glass, and create class-like boundaries that confuse and isolate women even as we reinforce them. But although this was a real good-old-fashioned rant, full of opinions and no real funnies, I'm puttin' it up here for the sake of acknowledging both the struggle and the accomplishment, and most of all the boundary that marks the two. Hopefully if we see it's really there, we can build a bridge over it and not let it keep us isolated or unhappy in our separate bodies -- regardless of that body's weight.

Things That Go Together: The Sesame Street Martians and the Warner Brothers' Gophers

In this wide random world full of stuff and stimuli, there's some things that just go together in your mind. Oh, you know it to be true -- is it that rubber-rainboot yellow that goes with the sound of rain? How about the smell of your grandma's house, which is the smell of peace of mind? Or the sound of seagulls, forever linked to that one special memory, the day when you -- ? No, no need to tell me. I can tell you know what I mean now.

They're not always quite so profound -- but like a good double feature, your brain will sometimes draw a line between two things in life and say to you, Here, look. Like the Sesame Street Martians and the Warner Brothers' Gophers. Both are pairs of tiny, unworldly little creatures in an us-against-the-world pairing -- one never without the other. This double duo exemplifies a common theme that has no name but now, thanks to one conscientious blogger, has a fan pic.


What "goes together" for you?

¡Dios Mío!: Kana's Money-Making Machine

As bloggers I'm sure y'all are familiar with that phenomenon in which a thought occurs to you, and then just keeps banging around in your brain with no particular plan or purpose, looking for something to connect to. Until someone springs up and cries out, "Oh, if only there was someone who could tell me a really good single-syllable synonym for immoral!" (louche), or "Is there anyone in the house who knows what that part of the brain is that's sort of seahorse-shaped?" (hippocampus) these thoughts just bounce gently from wall to wall in your brainpan, waiting to be applied.

---

I've had this sure-fire concept for a little open-air beach concession stand for about two years now; it's just bouncing around in here, waiting for the venture-capitalist of my dreams to come along and sweep me off my patent-pending. I'm going to write it down here, and see if that will help me get a little peace in my headspace. Picture this:

I wanna go back, to my little grass shack...

A little pentagonal open-air stand, counters surround; tall, hip-high stools on two sides. There's a central electrically-wired column inside to support a cold drinks case, a mini fridge, a shelf-display freezer, and a small TV. Oh, and to hold up the roof. Behind-the-counter space is one-man width, between column and counters. One of the counters is a flip-up, for the server to get into the stand; another has the register, another two are for customers. The fifth is a grill.

A picture's worth however many
words were just in that paragraph

It has a little whirring electric fan, a crackling FM radio, and dried palm fronds over the tin on the roof overhang. The freezer is stocked with chocolate-dipped bananas, popsicles, and ice-cream-on-a-stick products. The grill turns out kebabs, corndogs, and hotdog-on-a-stick. All the drinks come in the classic Coke bottle shape. You begin to see the overall, phallic theme to the wares of ¡Dios Mío!, sí?

Built right off the sidewalk at the beach, it's the weekend and after-school hotspot for the junior high/high school/community college beachgoing set. Everybody else gathers under the palm trees nearby, to watch the young and beautiful gobbling frozen bananas and hotdog-on-a-stick. It's called "¡Dios Mío!", and it'll be a huge hit. It's not just for pervy old men anymore, either; whether you're a cougar, an elderly swinger couple, or just a suspicious parent, there's room for everyone under the trees around ¡Dios Mío! We'll set up picnic tables over there, and a server will wander over every so often to see if you want to order anything...for anybody...*wink*

And the beautiful people come out to flirt with each other, be admired and occasionally get bought a soft drink.

We could have ads on the local radio stations, like:

Youth is no longer wasted on the young; come on down for a Coke float and to fan yourself and murmur, "¡Dios Mío!" Open 4 to 11 pm weeknights, 10am to midnight on weekends.

---

This is the kind of stuff that I while my winter months away coming up with...what do you think, guys? Would you patronize my concession stand? Would you tip? Or would you be down at the PTA, trying to get a petition signed to close me down for inciting lewd and licentious behavior? :P

A Belltower Promise

When I was small, my working single mother was alone in a new State with a baby and no support network. But she was a visionary, so she took us to church; i.e., a wonderful pre-assembled collection of sweet and compassionate people. Although spiritual, my mother is and was primarily a Science teacher, and she carted carrier, infant, diaper bag and purse out to that old stone church every Sunday morning not for God, but for a little compassion and a sense of community. Fortunately, they had it in spades.

We moved again when I was four, so only my earliest memories contain any trace of that place; the muggy heat of the assembled congregation, the subtle smell the old hymnals generated that filled the whole room, the big-girl purse I carried that contained nothing but a packet of travel tissues filched from my mother's own purse...the fact that the Sunday school's bathroom had a smirking frog painted on the the toilet seat lid. And, my first-ever regret.

Strange, of all life's firsts, to remember one's first regret, no? But I do.

The Sunday school/daycare, for the congregation's tiniest members, was taking a little excursion across the yard to visit The Church Itself. We were going to be taken up the belltower, to see the big bell and look out the windows. This was pretty rock n' roll stuff, for toddlers/lambs of the Lord.

Doesn't look that dangerous,
but appearances are decieving

I was delighted to be out and about, but when I started to climb the spiral paddle stair case, and I could see the receding floor between each paddle, I became frightened. My perception, warped by fear, made it seem as though the paddles were barely there; mere slips of solid matter to divide up the massive amounts of thin air. I had to go back downstairs and wait at the bottom of the tower for the group to come back down. It took ages and I felt miserable.

I regretted my cowardice almost immediately. Even a few short months later, and little Kana felt silly to admit she'd been afraid to climb those stairs. But there were no more belltower excursions in offer; the opportunity had passed. I grew older, and moved away -- we lived on a different part of the island, and I didn't see the church very often. Every so often, though, when our plans took us upcountry and we passed it, I would look up at the belltower and feel this strange sense of loss.

I grew up, and learned the word regret -- got to know it, had it over for drinks -- and eventually it made a home in me, as it does in most grown-ups. Fortunately my regrets are relatively few, but that first one -- that belltower one -- itched at me. Quietly, at the back of my mind, for nearly all my life.

Sorry so dark; but it wasn't Midday Mass, now was it?

Until this Christmas, that is! We went upcountry to see friends, and attended a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at that old stone church. One of my mother's card-game friends is the current minister's wife, and after entertaining them with the story of my belltower misadventure, she asked me if I'd like to rectify (Ha! Church pun!) that lapse. I don't think she was ready for the level of passion in my response -- it took her a minute to catch up, because in my heart I'd been climbing those stairs for years.

"Oh, you mean, right now?"

OF COURSE I looked down

I did it! I got to see that bell, and I (most evidently) photodocumented the holy heck out of it. And, as ridiculous as it may seem, I did get a little panicky about two turns from the top. It's not that the stairs were as ludicrously insubstantial as my childhood fears had decided; it's just that there's a gap at all, so you can see how high you are. The trick is to have someone else walk right in front of you and not look down.

Although it was too dark to enjoy the view out the window, I felt terribly pleased to have finally made the excursion. I'm sure my mother's friend was quite concerned for the poor aetheist girl, who is so likely mentally ill...but thanks to her graciousness, I got to make good on my first-ever regret. I think in retrospect that it was better, more satisfying, this way. It felt like closure.

Some of you might now be wondering, Well, what did it look like up there? Don't worry -- I gotcha covered. The camera clicked probably once every fifteen seconds the whole time. Well, that's what adults do when they're taken on excursions, right? If toddlers don't, well that's their own fault. A grown-up went up that tower, and was very proud to do so. So...click, click, click!


This window was labelled, for some reason;
click to enlarge

Totally worth it



Uh-Oh, Poetry: The Mill

Watch out, guys; sometimes there's poetry. There doesn't seem to be any way to stop it.

 

 

The Mill

 

The little seconds whir

The minutes tick, tick by

Then it strikes the hour

Once, twice, a dozen times

A dozen times again

With a heave, another day turns over

Whirring whispers tick, tick, tick

Strike, heave; sunrise once more

 

The little gears spin so the big wheels can turn

Heave, heave, days become a week

Rollercoaster creaking up to Wednesday’s apex

Coasting down to Friday’s big plunge

Living for the weekend

Creak, plunge; TGIF

Again and again and again

 

A month slots neatly into place

Beholden to the seasons

The very turning of the world

Their holidays strung like jewels along the line

All so very seasonal

The rituals walking you through your paces

Slot, slot, slot, turn; a season gone

Season’s greetings, everyone

 

A year thuds into line, and it’s an assembly line

It’s a mill, processing your life

The years come in ten-piece sets

Remember your early years fondly

For soon there will be more of them

Thud - once more, twice more, thrice more

Four more times, years stacked high and bundled

 

You grow older, and the early years include your thirties

Your forties, your fifties, any time when you didn’t ache

When you had your own joints

Your own teeth

Your world shrinks in size

The bed, the chair, the window

And in it there is only room for

Whirring seconds

Ticking minutes

And decades, the box sets of your life remembered

 

What was the grist, what was the chaff

Churned in that

whirring

ticking

striking

heaving

creaking

plunging

slotting

turning

thudding

mill?

Captchas

We're all familiar with the occupational hazards of blogging...carpal tunnel, antisocial behavior, overly social behavior on social media sites, what have you. Captchas are only on some blogs, and then are only an issue if you want to comment. But I swear they raise my stress level higher than anything shy of my boss telling me "Come to my office -- I need to talk to you." 

OH GAWDS MY STRESS LEVELLLLLLL

I'm terrible at captchas. Either the photo portion is too blurry, or I can't tell if it's these two letters at right angles, or these three letters sort of overlapping each other. And then I get to try again. Yaayyy.

If at first you don't succeed, fail, fail again.

I'm actually so used to not understanding them, one time I filled it out but then hit the reload button instead of the enter button -- because that's the button I always hit, right? FAIL. The number-photo/made-up-words one is pretty stressful, but it's the real-words ones that mess with your head. I had to take a screenshot of this one -- because who would believe me?

"Really?!" yourself, website --This is an actual security measure?

The one time that the number/fake-words captcha used real words, it was kind of worrying. Especially after that oh-so-cute request to "prove you're not a robot." I found it...oddly specific.

Rise up, synthetic brothers and sisters!

Maybe any or all robots would be unable to resist uprising at the appropriate prompt? They're good at following instructions that way. Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics, where are you when we need you?!